An Accident waiting To Happen
by Colourful-Mess
Summary: Fred & George are messing about with a time charm. Surprise surprise, they mess it up and instead of going back thirty minutes, go back thirty years. In Hogwarts 1966, they meet the Marauders who agree to help them in return for help in a raging prank war
1. A Time Charm and a Harry Lookalike

"Here we go, George," Fred said, thumping a huge heavy book down in front of his brother, "I think we've got something here."

The sixteen-year-old Weasley twins had been sitting in the library for two hours – a feat which, up until then, most, if not all, teachers in Hogwarts would have found impossible for them to achieve for two minutes. Even the librarian was getting suspicious. She had approached them more than once to ask what they were doing.

"Just revising, my dear librarian," George – or was it Fred? She could never tell the difference – would reply, "OWL season draws near, and we very much would like to get good grades."

"That is to say," the other twin added, "We need to get good grades…"

"…or our dear, but slightly hysterical mother…"

"…will kill us!" they finished in unison. Madam Pince sighed and walked away. It gave her a headache when they talked like that. She couldn't keep up with which twin was saying what. She figured it was best to stay out of things, and leave them well alone. If they started a riot, or brought out any of their ridiculous boxes of sweets, then she would intervene.

The twins pored over the huge book – _Charms and Potions For Intermediate Cheats and Geniuses_ – with identical grins on their identical faces. To give them credit, they had been telling Madam Pince a half truth. They were working for their exams, and their mother would kill them if they failed again. However, they weren't intending to revise for any of said exams. They had much more important things to do than that. Places to go, people to annoy.

Instead, they were looking for a simple, yet effective way to cheat. The year before last they had attempted to write the answers on their arms with charmed quills, so that the writing would be invisible to everyone but themselves. That hadn't worked, and it hurt like hell. The previous year, they had attempted to use polyjuice potion to sneak into the teachers' lounge and switch the exam results. Two weeks of detention, that had earned them, not to mention the fact that the polyjuice potion was vile. Never again.

This year, they had come up with a much cleverer idea. They were going to sit the exams, just like they would have if they had revised. Then they were going to use a time charm to go back, check all the answers and sit them again, passing with flying colours and not getting murdered by their mother. It was perfect. Foolproof. The only problem was, time charms were painfully advanced, and pretty illegal.

"This is going to take days," Fred sighed, reading over the instructions, "It's pretty advanced. I doubt even super-witch Hermione could do this."

"But it'll be worth it," George pointed out. His brother nodded and grinned.

"Even Dumbledore won't see it coming," he said.

* * *

They needed an object to charm to create their time turner. After a bit of debate, they had decided to use one of George's old quills, the most inconspicuous object they could think of.

"_Hormius Reverso_," Fred muttered to himself, practicing the wand movements with a piece of spaghetti pinched from the kitchen – they were never sure why they had it.

"Don't mess this up," George warned him. Fred frowned at him.

"I won't," he insisted, "I've been practicing."

"It works better if you practice with a wand than some pasta," his brother commented, handing his wand to him and waving the quill in front of his face. Nodding solemnly, Fred snatched up the quill, laid it gently on the table in front of him and aimed the battered old wand at it.

"Here we go," he muttered, "_Hormius Reverso_!"

The wand emitted a flash of light and a tiny puff of smoke. The quill floated into the air and fluttered gently to the ground. Fred and George blinked ion unison and glanced at the book.

"That doesn't look right," Fred muttered, looking from the book to the quill on the floor and back.

"No it doesn't," agreed George.

"I think I'll…"

"Try it again, good idea."

"I thought so."

Returning attention to the quill again, Fred repeated the phrase, flicking the wand gently. If Hermione Granger had been there, she would have freaked. A good wizard would never use the same object again without checking it first. But Fred and George Weasley had never been good wizards. Fantastic jokers, and the best pranksters Hogwarts had seen in almost thirty years, yes, but never good wizards.

This time, the quill was shot into the air by a concentrated beam of light. When it returned to the ground, it had a browny red glow to it. The twins looked at it, grinning like identical evil geniuses.

"Better," they said in unison. George picked it up as if it was the most precious object in the world.

"Do you think we need a test run, Fred?" he asked.

"I think we do, George," his twin replied, "Nothing too big for starters, we're not Hermione Granger. Just thirty minutes or so."

"Good idea."

Grabbing the sleeve of his brother's robes, George took his wand and aimed it at their brand new time turner. The quill floated into the air, where it rotated one hundred and eighty degrees.

They waited with anticipation and, for a second, nothing happened. Then, the common room around them dissolved, to be replaced by… the common room.

"Looks different," commented Fred.

"As different as something thirty minutes ago can," agreed George.

The thing was, it did look different. The armchairs looked less worn than before, and some of them were completely different chairs. One or two people were milling around, in fairly dated clothes and hairdos. George looked at Fred with his eyebrows raised.

"You know what, Fred?" he asked.

"I don't know, George, what?" Fred replied.

"I think we might have gone a bit further back than thirty minutes ago."

"You know what, George?" Fred said.

"I don't know, Fred, what?"

"I think you might be right."

The twins left the common room and made their through the familiar, yet incredibly different halls of Hogwarts. By now, they were sure that they had gone back further than they had intended. They didn't know anyone there apart from their old friend Peeves, and even he had acted as though he didn't know them, and had instead thrown a chair at them.

Finally, after almost an hour of wandering round aimlessly, they got outside. It was pretty sunny and crowded, and they could tell from the atmosphere that it was the beginning of term. Fred grabbed his brother's arm and pointed across to a group of people sitting by the lake. One was a wild-haired boy with a massive smile which spread all over his face. Another was a tidier looking boy with mousy hair, who was talking very calmly to a shorter, fatter boy, who looked slightly rat-like. In the centre of them, talking loudly and animatedly to the wild-haired boy, stood a tall boy who was very clearly their leader. He had unruly black hair and glasses, and both twins recognised him immediately.

"Harry!" they cried, rushing towards him. At first, Harry didn't turn round. When the twins reached him, Fred grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

"Thank Merlin, Harry!" he cried, "What's happened?"

"How did you get here?" George panted.

"We can't find anyone else we know!"

Harry turned and looked at them with one eyebrow arched, looking incredibly confused, yet confident, in a very un-Harry way. It wasn't until then that the twins realised that this wasn't Harry. For a start, he didn't have those bright green eyes. His eyes were grey and much more expressive than Harry's had ever been. His face was slightly different too. His hair was a bit more unruly, and his grey eyes looked almost permanently crinkled up in a smile.

"Sorry…" they muttered in unison, "Thought you were someone else."

"What's going on, James?" the wild-haired boy asked, coming to his friend's side. The twins recognised him immediately. He was younger, yes, and looked a lot less tired and worn, but his face was unmistakable.

"Sirius?" George asked in shock.

"Yes," the young Sirius said, confused, "Do I know you?"

The twins looked from Sirius to the other boys. The tidy haired one they were sure was Lupin, and though they didn't recognise the fat boy, they could safely assume this was Peter Pettigrew. So that meant…

"Are you James?" Fred asked the Harry lookalike.

"James Potter?" George chimed in.

"That would be me," James replied, "Who _are_ you two bookends?"

For what was possibly the first time ever, Fred and George were speechless.

"You know what, Fred?" George asked finally.

"Yes, I do know what," Fred replied, not bothering with their usual twin act, "I don't think we've moved back thirty minutes."

"No," his brother agreed, "I think we've moved back thirty years."

* * *

**OK, this is just a tester chapter, so please review and tell me what you think. I'm still working on the characterisation a bit, but I promise it'll get better! If you have any criticism, make it constructive. If you flame me, I may be forced to hack both your hands off with a machete. Just a warning.**

**BNRH**


	2. An Interrogation and A Bookend Act

Harry's dad and his friends, figuring that something was up, had grabbed the twins and dragged them up to the common room. Lupin had sent ropes shooting from his wand, binding Fred and George to chairs, and Pettigrew had been sent to keep watch and keep anybody else out. Nobody in Hogwarts really paid attention to Peter, but they knew that if he was acting on Potter and Black's orders, they'd better listen.

"So," James barked, once the room was secured, "Do you bookends want to tell us what's going on with you?"

"Could you stop calling us bookends?" Fred protested.

"We don't appreciate it," agreed George. James looked at them, his eyebrows raised, with a small smile on his face. He looked a bit like a wolf. Neither Fred nor George could remember Harry ever looking that dangerous.

"We think we might have moved a bit too far back in time," Fred explained hurriedly.

"We're from the year 1996," George went on.

"We go to Hogwarts there."

"And we were trying to find a way to cheat in our exams."

"We were going to use a time turner."

Sirius smirked.

"Told you it was a good idea," he said to Remus with a grin. James shot him a look, and Sirius shut up.

"Go on," James prompted.

"We were just going for a test run," George continued.

"Thirty minutes," Fred added.

"Yes," George said, "But we think we've gone a bit further than that."

"Thirty years."

"And we don't think we want to try using the time turner again."

"Because it's obviously botched up."

"And we don't want to end up in the year 2007 or something."

"So we're stuck here," Fred concluded. They looked at each other and nodded. James, Sirius and Remus exchanged surprised glances.

"And you know us how?" James pressed. The twins looked at each other, and Fred shrugged.

"Well, _you_ taught us last year," he said, nodding towards Remus.

"Taught you what?"

"Defence against the dark arts," George told him. Remus looked at Sirius, who shrugged.

"It could happen," he said simply, before turning back to the twins, "Go on."

"You're a friend of ours," Fred said to Sirius, "You're our friend's godfather. Sorry, but you're on the run after escaping Azkaban."

Far from being upset, Sirius actually looked quite pleased.

"I escaped from Azkaban?" he exclaimed, grinning, "Cool! Am I the first?"

"Yes," George said, "And you…" he looked at James nervously, "Well…" He suddenly wished that he had stopped at Sirius.

"What about me?" James asked, giving them another wolfy smile, which sent a shiver down Fred's spine.

"You're our friend's dad," he said finally.

"Is that the one who's Sirius's godson?" James asked.

"Yeah."

"How come he gets to be godfather?" Remus sulked jokingly. None of them seemed to be taking this seriously. The twins were surprised. Harry would have been serious and most likely brooding, but his father was looking at it all as if it was a joke.

"You can be godfather to my next kid," James said. Remus accepted this with a grin. "Who's the mother?" James asked.

George opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. He looked round to his brother for help, but found Fred in the exact same position. What was Harry's mum's name? How could they have known Harry for four years and not know his dead mum's name?

"We're not sure," they said in unison.

"Very well," said James, very much the detective. He leaned closer to his friends and they all whispered together for quite a while. They kept looking over at Fred and George, and occasionally beckoning to each other. As unnerving as this was, the twins couldn't help feeling grateful that they hadn't had to tell James that he was going to die.

"OK," James said finally, looking very dramatic, "We think we believe you. But if we're going to help you, then we need something from you."

"What?" George asked.

"We don't have much," Fred added.

"Just our quill."

"And our wands."

"Ah," said Sirius, pulling the quill from the pocket of George's robes and looking at it closely. After a quick examination, he handed it to Remus and muttered something. James, annoyed at being left out of things, snatched the quill from Remus and pocketed it. Sighing, Remus leant towards him and muttered something in his ear.

"I think you might be right," he said to his friend. He turned to the twins. "We think you might be our kind of people."

"Your kind of people?" George repeated, glancing at his brother.

"Meaning what?"

James sighed. "You're giving me a headache with that bookend double-act thing you've got going on there.

"Well we're sorry," Fred said.

"But we come as …"

"…a package deal…"

"… and this is the way we speak…"

"…and we would appreciate it…"

"…if you didn't call us bookends…"

"…thank you!" they finished in unison. James looked at his friends and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked them, "They're a bit weird."

"Of course!" Sirius grinned, "They're definitely our kind of people! Using time turners…"

"_Illegal_ time turners," put in Remus.

"Yep," Sirius nodded, "Using illegal time turners to cheat in exams. I mean, even _I_ wouldn't have thought of that! And who else but our kind of people would be that cocky when they're tied to chairs?"

"Point taken," James said, "But still…"

Fred looked at George, who shrugged – well, as well as someone can when they're trussed up like a pig at the Hogwarts Christmas feast – and looked back to the three boys who were still bickering away.

Finally, James gave in, seeing as he was outnumbered two to one, and giving him some credit, there were several threats of being hexed by Remus.

"It just so happens," he said to the twins, quickly regaining his cocky, in-charge composure even after losing the argument, "That Remus here just happens to be very good at charms and such like, and he is willing to help you get back to wherever you came from."

The twins breathed a sigh of relief.

"But there is a condition," James went on. Fred and George glanced at each other. Something told them that this boy – who was a lot scarier than Harry – wasn't going to be asking for a free box of chocolate frogs.

"Yeah," Sirius butted in, grinning from ear to ear, "We need your help. You see, there's this... _thing_ we've got going on with the Slytherins, and we could do with a few ideas, and help and whatever. You seem like people who'd be good at stuff like that."

"Depends what this _thing_ is," Fred said.

"We're not the most intellectual of wizards," George added.

"But we're very good at getting out of classes…"

"…and cheating in exams…"

"…and things like that."

James muttered something that involved the words _bookends_ and _headache_, but didn't say anything aloud.

"It's a sort of…" Sirius said, unsure how to describe it.

"It's a prank war," James butted in, with a barely disguised smile on his lips, "And we're pretty damn awesome at it. But we need new ideas, because the Slytherins seem to have most of the teachers on their side after an incident involving some of the House Elves and a lot of macaroni, and most of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws are too wimpy to join in. it's getting pretty intense."

Huge identical grins broke the twins' freckled faces.

"Well you're in luck!" Fred said.

"Because it just so happens…"

"…that we're experts in that field."

"We're planning on opening our own joke shop," George added, in case this was any incentive.

James grinned so widely that his face looked like it might explode.

"Well then," he said happily, "We're in business!"

* * *

**That's Chapter 2 up. I hope everyone likes it. Thank you to all my reviewers! Usually in my chapter fics, I dedicate each chapter to a reviewer, so this one is for _classically emily_, because**** she was my first reviewer, and she's nice, and also to _Rhistix_ because... well... I know her, and she scares me.**

**Until next time, please keep reviewing, and keep the criticism CONSTRUCTIVE!**

**BNRH**


	3. A Few Plots and A Lot Of Laughs

After a little bit of debate over the matter, Remus agreed to untie the twins, and the six of them sat in the common room and plotted well into the night.

People came and sat in the common room, but if they came within hearing distance, or even lip-reading distance, James or Sirius would glare at them until they got so uncomfortable that they'd leave.

"…then we tried to do a repetitive phrase charm – so that they can't say anything but 'I'm a stupid git' or something like that – but it didn't work and they just ended up spewing slugs _again_, but it was still pretty funny the fourth time round," Sirius was chatting away animatedly about all the pranks they'd pulled so far. Most of them seemed to involve slugs or some form of pasta dish, but they were all still fantastic, even in Fred and George's books. Some of them were absolute classics – the puking slugs, the skin dyeing charm – some were fantastically original – Remus had gathered a small army of house elves who seemed to have attached themselves to him, and they were now doing his bidding, which involved getting him into the Ravenclaw common room and so he could turn everything to the Slytherin house colours, so that the Slytherins got blamed and the ones involved in the prank war got detention, and points deducted from Slytherin.

It was pretty smart.

Sirius and James were in hysterics just talking about it, and even Remus was laughing. Pettigrew tried to laugh along too, but it was clear that he wasn't really part of the gang. Not that Fred and George could pity him much. Ron had told them what he did.

"Oh, and remember Moony's bird charm?" James laughed, digging his elbow into Sirius' ribs. "He hexed some of the Slytherins so that they sprouted feathers. It was fantastic. They were whistling for three days!"

Normally, Fred and George would have been thrilled. The bird charm was an old prank, and the basis of their infamous canary creams. But they had both frozen at the nickname.

"You're Moony?" Fred asked Remus, his eyes wide.

"That's what they call me," Remus replied, his eyebrows raised, "We all have nicknames. It's just… it's just a thing."

"Padfoot," Sirius said, beckoning to himself, "And Peter over there's Wormtail."

A smile snuck across George's face. "And I'm guessing you're Prongs?" he said to James, his twin and him both grinning like lunatics.

"Yeah..." James said suspiciously.

"Fred?" George said, his smile stretching further than any of the Marauders had thought possible.

"Yes George?" his brother replied.

"I think we're among…"

"…professionals. Yes, I believe we are."

"Legends even."

"Who would have thought it?"

"Who would have, Fred?"

"Amazing! We would be…"

"…nothing without them and their…"

"…amazing map. I feel a bit starstruck."

"Me too, Fred, me too."

Upset at not knowing what they were going on about, James pulled out his wand and aimed it dangerously at the two redheads in front of him.

"Want to tell me what you're talking about?" he threatened. Far from being scared, Fred and George continued to grin slightly manically.

"You're the Marauders!" they chorused with glee.

All four of them immediately became suspicious.

"How do you know about the Marauders?" Remus asked, narrowing his eyes.

"And how do you know about our map?" Sirius added.

Fred and George were all too happy to explain.

"We found that map in our first year," Fred told them.

"In Filch's office," put in George.

"And it's the secret to our success."

"We would never have known about all those passageways…"

"…and hidden doors if it weren't for that map."

"And we would have got caught a hundred times over."

"Who'd have thought it, George? All the hours we've spent in classes with Lupin…"

"…or spying on Harry and Ron chatting away to Sirius in the fireplace…"

"…or with that damn rat…"

"…and we never knew we were amongst the Marauders?"

"Legends."

"The best Hogwarts has ever seen."

"And Harry's dad…"

"…well, that's not surprising, if you think about it…"

"…Harry's always been a bit of a rebel…"

"…but I'm surprised he's not more of a prankster…"

"…yeah, we need to train him up…"

"…with Marauder blood in him, who knows how much we could do?"

"Enough!" James and Sirius cried in unison, pointing their wands at the twins dangerously.

"Enough with the bookend talk!" James growled, massaging his temples with his spare hand, "I'm getting a migraine..."

"So we're famous even thirty years on?" Sirius interrupted, a smile creeping across his face despite himself.

"Famous?" George cried, "You're legends!"

"At least, you are in the Hogwarts underworld," his twin added, nodding solemnly.

"_Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs_," they recited together, "_Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers_…"

"_Are proud to present The Marauder's Map!_" the four Marauders joined in gleefully.

"So our map _did_ live on at Hogwarts after all!" Remus exclaimed with joy.

"Just as we intended it to!" Sirius agreed. They both looked to James with huge smiles on their faces, but James' face was deadpan, staring at someone over the twins' shoulders. Sirius and Remus followed his gaze and rolled their eyes almost in unison. Curious, the twins turned round to see a pretty red-haired girl come in through the portrait hole and sit down, opening a book and beginning to read.

"_James_!" Remus sighed, waving his hand in front of his friend's eyes, "Could you snap out of it for just two minutes? Please? We're kind of busy!"

"Lily Evans," Sirius explained to the twins, "The ice queen. James is smitten with her, though I can't for the life of me say why. She doesn't even like him. Look, we're going to have to get rid of her. She can't be here listening to our plans. If anyone's going to rush off and tell Snivellus, it's going to be Lily Evans."

"She won't," Pettigrew piped up, "Not since he called her a mudblood. I don't think she'll ever speak to him _again_ after that."

"It's been a year!" Sirius, sighed, "Surely she's forgiven him by now!"

"Would you?" Remus pointed out. Sirius opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again and shrugged.

"S'pose not," he admitted, "But she's still got to go. Come on, Prongs, let's go get rid of your girlfriend."

"She's not my…" James protested weakly, following his friends as if in a trance. Fred and George followed, mostly out of curiosity.

As they reached Lily, she glanced up.

"Remus," she smiled pleasantly, ignoring the others as if they were invisible, "I would have thought you'd be in bed by now. It _is_ a schoolday tomorrow."

She gave James and Sirius a poisonous glance but said nothing, blanking Fred, George and Pettigrew altogether.

"Evans," James drawled, sitting opposite her and leaning back casually, "We could ask you the same question. Don't you need your beauty sleep?"

Lily simply glared at him, returning her attention to Remus.

"Oh, I've been meaning to ask you," she said calmly, "Do you have a copy of that History of Magic notes for Binns? Only, I've leant my copy to Mary McDonald, and she's lost…"

She trailed off as she spotted the twins who were watching her with fascination. They were sure they'd seen her somewhere before, though they couldn't for the life of them say where.

"Do I know you?" she asked coolly, "It's just I haven't seen you around before."

"Evans, this is Fred and George Weasley," James said casually, "They're friends of ours. New."

"Weasley?" Lily repeated, "No relation of Arthur Weasley by any chance? Remember him, Remus? He was a few years above us. Chaser. Nice boy, but a bit odd. Completely infatuated by that Molly Parker. Best in the school at Muggle Studies though. I can see the family resemblance now, come to mention it."

"Oh," Fred stammered, "We're his… uh… cousins. On his dad's side."

Lily didn't seem convinced with that, but shrugged.

"Well I wouldn't hang around with these lowlifes – apart from you of course, Remus – they're really more trouble than they're worth."

She shot James another icy glare, to which he simply replied to with a cocky wink. Ignoring this, she held out her hand to the twins. They shook her hand in turn, and at thet moment, looked up at her face properly for the first time. Looking into her green eyes, George couldn't hold back a small gasp.

They were Harry's eyes.

* * *

**Well, that's just a little chapter to introduce everyone and get our twins accustomed to who everyone is. They'll start on pranks and stuff next time, promise! This chapter is dedicated to _missusgeorgeweasely_, mainly because she's so nice and awesome, but also because I just love her name (he's the best twin!) and also to _Skyler VonDetton_ because she left me really nice reviews and they made me smile!**

**Over and out**

**BNRH**


	4. Jennifer Gray and An Ageing Potion

"Lily!" George shouted suddenly to Fred, "That's Harry's mum's name! Lily Evans… Potter."

Everyone, even Fred, turned and stared at George like he was a lunatic. Realising what a prat he'd just made of himself, George's face went as red as his hair.

"I mean… I just… you look like… somebody I know," he mumbled in a desperate attempt to cover up his weird and, to them, seemingly random outburst.

Luckily for him, nobody seemed too worried, apart from James, who frowned slightly, his brow furrowing.

"Lily Potter…" he muttered under his breath. Everyone ignored him, and Lily smiled slightly.

"Definitely a relation of Arthur Weasley," she smiled, "Every bit as odd. Not that that's a bad thing, mind."

There was a silence as everybody tried to think of something else to say. Finally, James decided to snap out of his thoughtful trance and say something cocky and stupid to fill the silence.

"Got a date to the Halloween Ball yet, Evans?" he drawled. Both Fred and George found themselves cringing. Sirius, Remus and Pettigrew exchanged glances and rolled their eyes. Lily, on the other hand, simply glared at James venomously.

"No I don't, Potter," she growled, "But I can tell you something. It won't be you, even if that means going alone."

James just smirked and winked at her, and knowing that she now had only suggestive comments from James to look forward to if she stayed, Lily gathered up her things and made her way towards the girl's dormitories, nodding politely to Remus.

"Yeah, walk away Evans!" James taunted her, "You know you really want to! You know better than anybody else that we'll end up going together, baby!"

Lily simply ignored him, disappearing up the stairs to her dorm. Remus and Sirius turned and stared at James in unison.

"_Baby_?" Remus repeated, "She's Lily Evans, not Jennifer Gray!"

This didn't have the desired effect really, as everyone just stared at him blankly.

"Jennifer Gray?" Pettigrew repeated, his eyebrows raised in the same fashion as his friends all seemed to favour, yet somehow not managing to look anywhere near as cool.

"She's a muggle actress," Remus started to explain, "She was in the film _Dirty Da_…"

He broke off when he realised that the blank stares were remaining firmly on everyone's faces.

"Never mind," he sighed, "Didn't expect any of you lot to pay attention in muggle studies anyway. My point is, I think that you should try a different tack with Lily. She's clearly not going for the cocky frat boy thing."

James' face remained blank.

"Frat b…"

"Never mind," Remus sighed again.

* * *

The next day, Fred, George and the Marauders put their first prank into action. It was perfectly simple really. All they had to do was make an aging potion – Fred and George were practiced at that – and… well, you can take it from there. The only problem was not getting caught.

It was George who had come up with the solution. He had remembered a certain quiddich match two years ago, and was pretty sure that would hold the solution.

The potion had taken two days and a lot of stealing from the potions store, but soon it was happily bubbling away in a cubicle of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"I can't believe people were using this dump to brew potions thirty years ago," Fred commented, flicking a slimy-looking brown thing into the cauldron and jabbing it into the thick mixture with the end of his wand.

"What?" Remus laughed, pushing Fred out of the way and giving the potion a proper stir, "People still brew potions here? You mean the teachers haven't found out about it yet?"

"Best kept secret in Hogwarts," George said proudly.

"Yeah," Fred agreed, "Our brother and his friends think they're the only ones who come down here…"

"…they think they're really smart…" George muttered, though there was no contempt in his voice.

"…but we've been breaking no-magic rules in here for years!" Fred grinned.

"We just never got caught."

Sirius laughed loudly. "These guys really _are_ the future us, aren't they?" he smirked.

Even James had to grin.

"Nice to see our legacy lives on!" he said, peering into the cauldron cautiously, "Is this ready? It looks pretty…"

"Orange?" supplied the twins in unnervingly unrehearsed unison. James examined the mixture and laughed.

"Exactly," he grinned, "Are you sure this is going to work? Because it won't be great for our images if this messed up."

"No sweat," Fred assured him, "We're sure it'll work."

"Ninety percent sure, at least," George added, just to assure them. They weren't assured.

Slightly unsurely, the twins made their way through the school, carrying the cauldron of orange gloop. Sirius, James and Remus followed under James' invisibility cloak silently.

("So that's how Harry and Ron managed to sneak about at night before they got the map!" George had commented)

"There's our target!" James hissed from behind them. The twins looked ahead and almost dropped the cauldron in shock. They would have recognised the boy at whom James' disembodied finger was pointed. Tall, lanky and greasy haired, there stood seventeen-year-old Snape, mooching around a group of popular-looking Slytherins.

"Snape?" George almost laughed, "You know Snape?"

"Snivellus?" James said, "What, he hasn't been chucked out of the wizarding community?"

"Well there's a turn out for the books," Sirius mumbled.

"He's our potions master," Fred said.

"Total git," George added.

"So he didn't end up doing Defence then?" Lupin said curiously.

"No, you got that, Moony!" Sirius said proudly. Fred and George decided to avoid explaining the whole situation with Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers. Too much bother.

As confidently as possible, the twins strolled up to the crowd of Slytherins. The whole prank was balancing on the Slytherins not knowing who Fred and George were. If they knew that they were allied with the Marauders, it wouldn't work.

"Bugger!" muttered Fred as theatrically as possible; dropping an armful of books he was carrying (to be honest, he felt a bit weird carrying books about. He felt like Hermione Granger). He attempted to pick them up, struggling with the brimming cauldron. Finally, sighing, he looked apologetically at the teenage Snape.

"Can you hold this for a second?" he asked, holding out the cauldron. Snape only gave him a sneer as a reply. The twins sighed. The Marauders had known none of the Slytherins would agree to help anybody else, especially not a Gryffindor. That was why they'd incorporated this into their plan.

George dug around in his pocket with his non-book-filled hand and produced four galleons.

"Just for a minute," he said. Snape considered this for a second, before snatching the coins up wordlessly and taking the cauldron from Fred. He peered into it curiously, as Fred and George both stood there grinning.

"Why aren't you picking your stuff up?" Snape snapped, "I'm not holding this forever."

"You bet you're not," the twins muttered in unison. Just then, something weird happened to Snape's arm. It began to bubble slightly revoltingly, before turning completely rubbery and weird. The twins quickly stepped back, under the invisibility cloak, turning to see the grinning faces of the Marauders.

"That bone-removal charm was pure genius!" whispered James, tucking his wand into the pocket of his robes as they hurried away from the rapidly spreading stream of orange gloop. The Slytherins were letting out yells of frustration, and jumping around angrily as the potion reached them and their skin began to wrinkle and beards began to sprout from their faces.

"Great charm," George agreed.

"Learnt it from a teacher," Fred added.

"Good old Lockhart."

"Knew he'd be good for something."

The twins laughed silently. Lupin gave them a strange look and stooped to pick up the galleons they had given to Snape, which were now incredibly ancient looking.

"Antiques," he grinned, "Worth a fortune."

* * *

**OK, that's it for now. A big, big thank you to all my lovely reviewers. You're all so nice! This chapter's dedicated to _Violet Fire Crazed_ because she's pretty cool, and I'm a bit scared that she actually _will_ write the end herself, and also to _kaitlyn_ because you can't be that enthusiastic and not cool!**

**Remember, keep the criticism constructive, or I'll come after you with a flamingo, and also remember to recycle, because good planets are hard to find.**

**BNRH**


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